


it was raining in hyrule

by madlad



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, rain has no rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 23:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19386250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlad/pseuds/madlad
Summary: There was a tremor in his hands where Link held the reins. He couldn’t feel the ends of his fingers, and the once protective gloves were now wet wraps of cloth that his fingers were confined in.





	it was raining in hyrule

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write about the feeling that playing botw gives me

It was raining in Hyrule. 

Link blinked droplets out of his eyes as they clung on to his lashes with tiny, determined fingers. His mare, Epona, huffed beneath him, shaking her head irritably to dislodge the water from her ears. They were both drenched, and Link could feel the cold seeping through the thick clothing he had on, water soaking through his skin and all the way down to his bones. 

There was a tremor in his hands where Link held the reins. He couldn’t feel the ends of his fingers, and the once protective gloves were now wet wraps of cloth that his fingers were confined in. 

There was a cave, or at least an outcropping just ahead and he urged Epona on with a dig of his heels. She sped into a canter, and her hooves slopped into the muddy ground beneath them. Link’s shoulders ached with the weight of his gear on his back, his quiver of arrows rattling with every heavy step that Epona took. His sword was digging uncomfortably into his side but it was easy to ignore against the sheets of rain that were now buffeting across his face. 

The wind had turned against them and the rain’s grasping fingers turned into ice cold claws that ripped across his cheeks. He turned his head away and forced his hands to release its grip on the reins, patting down his side until he could shove it into his pocket and pull out another soaking wet rag. He let both hands go, and gripped the saddle with his legs, trusting Epona to go in the right direction as he tied the cloth shakily around his face, to save at least some of it from being hit with the relentless downpour. 

His ears felt like he’d shoved his head underwater, and his brain rattled around in skull but he kept going.

Finally Epona skidded to a halt, rearing back her head as they entered the blissfully dry cave. There were ore deposits jutting out of the walls and ceiling, but link ignored them, instead clambering down from the mare with a groan. 

They’d been caught in the storm unexpectedly, on the journey from the Zora back to Hateno village. Link had stopped to forage for some muchrooms and to loose a few arrows on the boars that roamed in the forest. Between one moment and the next, stormclouds had begun to gather overhead. There hadn’t been enough time to go back, but it was any easier going forward. 

He hefted the saddle off of the exhausted mare, going through the motions of unbuckling packs and sliding off the saddle blanket with an ease that came from a different life. He remembered saddling Epona for the first time, with the stable hand prepared to help him close by. He’d expected to need their help straight away and yet...and yet his hands moved with a surety that he was sure had been lost to him, when he gripped the pommel of his sword with trembling hands, when it had taken him a few tries to get his arrow nocked in his bow without shaking it loose again. 

Link didn’t want to think about how many times his hands had done this.

He soothed a hand down her nose, and her neck, easing away the exhaustion he could feel in her tensed muscles. 

Digging through the packs, Link let out a sigh of relief to see that the flint hadn’t gotten wet, packed under all those layers of clothing and food. He unwrapped the cloth full of twigs and kindling and arranged them in a makeshift fire. It was small, but it would serve its purpose. 

Link struck at the flint a few times with his sword, until sparks flew and burrowed into the warm nest of pine needles and bark. 

As the fire crackled and began to grow, Link eased back against the stone with a grunt of exhaustion. His ears flicked off stray droplets of water, and he ran his hands roughly through his hair, dislodging more rain. The storm still rumbled on outside, and he watched the sheets of rain move down across the fields outside of the cave. The sky was a tumultuous grey, and he imagined other travellers like himself fleeing from the unexpected downpour. 

Epona folded her legs underneath her before rolling onto her side, snorting out another burst of hot air as her eyes blinked sluggishly. She’d almost been hit by a bokoblin arrow, and she was still wary of them, given that the last mark of an encounter gone wrong was etched across her flank.

If he looked beyond the rain, he could just see the spires of the castle, rising out of the mass of Calamity Ganon’s toxic waste. 

Where Hyrule had fallen. Where Zelda was kept prisoner. Her voice still echoed in his ears, and he had to turn his head away, away from the surety that he would save her, the faith that he would prevail.

Instead he focussed on unwrapping the bindings around his arms, unpeeling piece after piece of armour. He shuffled closer to the warmth of the fire and laid out all the pieces on the stone to dry. Finally, he pulled his undershirt over his head, and sighed, sagging backwards.

Link hesitated before looking down. His torso was predictably a mass of bruising and scars, crisscrossing across his sides and downwards. He poked at a particularly nasty bruise, yellow blooming at its edges with the kind of morbid curiousity that has children poking around at worms washed up after a storm. It hurt. 

He had to twist into an odd angle to see the cut that a particularly quick lizalfos had made on his left side, blade cutting all the way through his armour. Blood crusted around the now sluggishly bleeding wound. It wasn’t too deep but it still stung when he pressed around it, and he hissed out air through his teeth. 

Sparing a glance outside, he sighed. It was going to be a long night, and he didn’t particularly feel like sleeping when he could be woken up to a sword buried in his chest. 

Link was methodical in wrapping up his wound, winding a strip of cloth around his abdomen, tying a knot with one end gripped in his teeth, eyes screwing shut against the pain of pressure against bruised ribs. His hands were rough from hours of cleaving his sword into enemies, and equally as many hours falling and scraping his palms on the cutthroat edge of gravel and stone, but they were still deft and worked quickly at sewing up his wounds and then his torn clothing. His fingers were finally regaining feeling after being soaked to the bone with rain, the fire pulsing warmth throughout their shelter.

Finally, when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, he walked groggily over to Epona and curled gingerly onto his side, his head resting on her gently rising-and-falling flank. The fire crackled in his ears and the rain slowed to a patter on the damp grass. The journey to Hateno would be long the next day, and full of danger. The next blood moon was close, and he dreaded the ever present strain in Zelda’s voice every time she called on him. He knew there was only so much more time he could fill before he had to face the next divine beat. His head ached from being an echo chamber of memorys with no connections.

But for now, Link fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> who else lost their shit about the botw 2 trailer huh? short hair zelda rights
> 
> [tumblr](http://bachusbitch.tumblr.com)


End file.
